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Roselyne's Blog - Enjoying the fruits of our labour!

Our member Roselyne, who runs cookery courses professionally, has kindly offered to provide recipes and tips for making the most of our produce. They will be posted here every week or two, and we hope you enjoy them! Here is her first post, on those abundant salad leaves:

I have made very tasty mixed salads with the selection of the various leaves and lettuces harvested,
including rocket, red mustard, mizuna, baby spinach, the lovely looking curly lollo biondo, and an
amazing cos lettuce – with no bites from slugs!

You may have found that some of the leaves go limp quite quickly, even when kept in the fridge;
refresh them by plunging them in cold water for one hour; a little vinegar can be added to
help ‘unstick’ and get rid of impurities and insects. Rinse twice under the tap, drain well in a salad
spinner and these leaves will keep fresh and crisp for a few days in the spinner or in a Tupperware
box in the fridge.

When making your salads, if you find the taste of some a little strong, chop them up into three or four pieces
and mix them with other milder leaves. Bitterness in salad leaves is something most of us are not
used to having very much of, these days; not like the Italians!

To make your ‘salade verte’ even tastier, add a lovely dressing made by mixing 2 tbsp walnut
or olive oil, 1⁄2 to 1 tbsp of red, white wine or cider vinegar and simply a pinch of salt and black
pepper. A scant teaspoon of wholegrain mustard or 1 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh basil can be
added too.

To make your salads more nutritious try adding some super-tasting Tamari roasted seeds: toast 1 tbsp sunflower and 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
in a dry heavy based, small frying pan and put on a medium heat. Cover with a lid when they start
popping and before they all jump out of the pan! Turn the heat off when the sunflower seeds are a
light golden colour. Leave to cool for 10 to 15 seconds. Add a dash of either Tamari or Shoyu (good
quality soy sauces, or use any decent soy sauce), and stir quickly. Take the lid off and leave them
until the seeds are dry, then sprinkle over salads.

Enjoy all these vitamins, minerals and fibre. Fibre is one of the best sources of probiotic you can
have! It feeds and helps replenish the friendly bacteria in the gut.

For more information or comments, email roselyne@lacuisineimaginaire.co.uk